Ho, Ho, Ho!!! Time to hang that mistletoe, stuff those stockings, decorate the tree, and kickback with some eggnog and your favorite Christmas tunes. We have a great show lined up as we celebrate the holidays, and my brithday, with some very special guests! Have you been nice this year? I sure hope so!

Brian Charette has established himself as a leading voice in modern jazz. Charette is a Grammy-nominated, Hammond-endorsed artist who was just named the winner of the 2014 Downbeat Critics’ Poll in the "Rising Star: Organ" category. Besides being a critically acclaimed composer and bandleader, Brian has worked with notable artists such as Joni Mitchell, Chaka Khan, Paul Simon, Cyndi Lauper, and many more.

Blues fans all over the world continue to discover the incredible sounds of Memphis Gold. Born in Memphis, Tennessee in 1955, Memphis Gold, Chester Chandler was the thirteenth child of fourteen. His father also a musician introduced his son to the guitar at the tender age of 4. By the age of 8, he was a regular on historic Beale Street in Memphis where he played the guitar and danced for pocket change from the crowd.

Following in the footsteps of his famous cousins, Grammy Award Winner, Denise Williams, and Author/Activist/Comedian, Dick Gregory, Memphis has come a long way on a journey that has lasted half a century. Having released four full length albums to date, he has shared the stage with such artists as Bernard Allison, David Banner, James Brown, R.L. Burnside, Barbara Carr, Big Lucky Carter, George Clinton and the Parliament Funkadelic All Stars, Deborah Coleman, Shemikca Copeland, Robert Cray, Eddie Cusac, John Hammond, Little Jimmy King, Bettye Lavette, Johnny Lang, Kenny Neal, Taj Mahal, Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes, Bobby Parker, Louisianna Red, Lil Jimmy Reed, Jimmie Lee Robinson, Guitar Shorty, Elder Utah Smith, Mavis Staples, Hubert Sumlin, Roomful of Blues, Sister Rosetta Tharpe , Otis Rush, The Temptations, Jimmy Vaughn, and many more.

Get ready for an hour of some good old, down home, foot thumpin blues. As the saying goes, Memphis Gold is definitely the real deal.

With a career spanning three decades, internationally acclaimed songstress, Carmen Lundy, older sister of bassist, Curtis Lundy, has affectionately been compared to Aretha Franklin, Ella Fitzerald, and Sarah Vaughn. A woman of many hats, Ms. Lundy has composed and published over forty songs. She is celebrated throughout the world for her vocal artistry and is highly regarded for her jazz innovation. As a painter, Lundy's oil on canvas paintings have been exhibited in New York at The Jazz Gallery (Soho) and The Jazz Bakery, and in Los Angeles at the Madrid Theater. Her art also appears in the booklets that accompany her CDs

Carmen has just released her 14th album, "Soul to Soul". Almost two years in the making, Soul to Soul consists of new original songs by Lundy, and a few very special collaborations. The album features legendary artists - specialists on their respective instruments - including Patrice Rushen, Geri Allen, Randy Brecker, Ada Rovatti, Warren Wolf, Bennie Maupin, harpist Carol Robbins, and Simphiwe Dana, a stunning South African vocalist and composer, among others.

Chicago Born, Bob Mamet, is an internationally acclaimed Jazz pianist and composer. He has composed music for over a hundred projects in T.V. film, and advertising, in addition to touring as a sideman and bandleader.

Bob's distinctive mixture of Jazz styles and composition caught the ear of the major record labels, and in 1994 he signed with Atlantic Records. Bob recorded three highly successful albums for Atlantic, plus additional recordings for Sony and Warner Brothers.

His collaborations with artists such as Alex Acuna, Larry Carlton, Eric Marienthal, Gerald Albright, David Benoit and many other top artists led Jazziz magazine to proclaim him a "brilliant composer" who gives his players "an intelligent, thoughtful, and vibrant musical landscape in which to work."

He has been described as a "master of melody and structure" by The San Francisco Chronicle; "adventurous… sparkling… intriguing" by Jazz Times Magazine; and the Chicago Sun Times calls him simply "The Natural."

Bob Mamet will soon be releasing his 5th CD, “London House Blues”, on the BluJazz label. Featuring original compositions as well as standards and classics from the Great American Songbook and Post-Bop eras, the album serves as a tribute to the famed artists who frequented the legendary Chicago Jazz club in the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s.

Dee Daniels’ musical career is as varied as her four-octave vocal range is thrilling. She is a unique talent who transcends musical borders when she brings her jazz styling, infused with gospel and blues flavoring, to the stage.

Her vocal style was born in her stepfather’s church choir in Oakland, California, refined through the R&B era, polished during a five-year stay in The Netherlands and Belgium from 1982 to 1987, and brought to full fruition upon her return to North America. During those years to the present, she has performed and recorded with many ‘Legends of Jazz’ including Toots Thielemans, Houston Person, Clark Terry, Lionel Hampton, Monty Alexander, John Clayton, and Jeff Hamilton, Hank Jones, Bill Mays, Dennis MacKrel, Bucky Pizzarelli, Ken Peplowski, and Russell Malone - to mention a few.

Dee has just released her newest project, Intimate Conversations, and it is nothing less than stellar. Please join me and my very special guest for what I know will be an interesting, entertaining, and just a good old time!

Ok, so what do you get when you follow four single friends as they embark on the journey of finding meaningful relationships? 12 minutes of some of the most hillarious adventures. The brainchild of Focused Studios’ founder, Kyree Terrell, a former actor turned director, the Singledom vignettes chronicle the comical misadventures of these friends as they search for love in all the wrong places and find themselves in the process..

Among other things, Kyle Eastwood comes from a musical family. Both parents, Clint Eastwood and Maggie Johnson, played the piano; and, his maternal grandmother taught music at Northwestern University. So, I guess one can say that his entry into the realm of music was inevitable.

Accompanied by a London-based crew of stellar young musicians, Eastwood and company blend infectious grooves and outstanding improvisations throughout eleven diverse tracks on The View From Here. “They’re all really talented players,” says Eastwood, “and we’ve been playing together for a while now, developing a real band chemistry. We ended up writing a lot of these new tunes together either at rehearsals or out on the road during last year’s tour around Europe. Sometimes I would come up with a couple of ideas or Andrew might bring something in, then everybody would just add on to it after that.”

Kyle's latest CD, The View From Here, is as true to the genre, and culture of Jazz as one can get in these modern times. The pulsating rhythms being extracted from his band's acoustic instruments, are not only pure and exact, but seem to represent a symbolic life source for both the band, and its listeners.

Highly respected by his contemporaries, Georgian born Kenyon Carter, is frequently invited to collaborate on stage and in the studio with some of the biggest names in the music business. He expresses his creative and soulful style through a beautiful and sultry sound. Although unique and entirely unmistakeable, he has been compared to contemporary smooth jazz favorites like Boney James, Dave Koz, Kirk Whalum and Gerald Albright.

Coming off the heels of his highly acclaimed freshman CD, Right By My Side, Kenyon has moved on to produce yet another heartfelt creation. His newly released, Songs for My Father, exhibits Carter's seemingly effortless ability of blending gospel with Jazz, with an intensely powerful result.

Join me as Kenyon and I discuss the motivation behind his latest project.

When vocalist Toni Lincoln was 5 years old, she liked to dress up in her grandmother’s vintage dresses and sing to her dolls which she neatly arranged on her bed as an audience for her impromptu concerts. Little did she know that it would be more than 5 decades later that she would do her first real live singing appearance at a little subterranean Portland jazz club.

Toni Lincoln’s new self-titled CD is testament to her love of the Great American Songbook and her exceptional skill in bringing emotional honesty and her own special sweetness to the genre.

With the haunting sounds of days gone by, Toni is the essence of the crisp, pure, smooth tones that are so reminiscent of standard chirpings made legendary by greats like Ella and Sarah,

Blues fans all over the world continue to discover the incredible sounds of Memphis Gold. Born in Memphis, Tennessee in 1955, Memphis Gold, Chester Chandler was the thirteenth child of fourteen. His father also a musician introduced his son to the guitar at the tender age of 4. By the age of 8, he was a regular on historic Beale Street in Memphis where he played the guitar and danced for pocket change from the crowd.

Following in the footsteps of his famous cousins, Grammy Award Winner, Denise Williams, and Author/Activist/Comedian, Dick Gregory, Memphis has come a long way on a journey that has lasted half a century. Having released four full length albums to date, he has shared the stage with such artists as Bernard Allison, David Banner, James Brown, R.L. Burnside, Barbara Carr, Big Lucky Carter, George Clinton and the Parliament Funkadelic All Stars, Deborah Coleman, Shemikca Copeland, Robert Cray, Eddie Cusac, John Hammond, Little Jimmy King, Bettye Lavette, Johnny Lang, Kenny Neal, Taj Mahal, Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes, Bobby Parker, Louisianna Red, Lil Jimmy Reed, Jimmie Lee Robinson, Guitar Shorty, Elder Utah Smith, Mavis Staples, Hubert Sumlin, Roomful of Blues, Sister Rosetta Tharpe , Otis Rush, The Temptations, Jimmy Vaughn, and many more.

Get ready for an hour of some good old, down home, foot thumpin blues. As the saying goes, Memphis Gold is definitely the real deal.

May 7 - Keyboardist/Composer/Social activist - Brian O'NealBack by popular demand, Brian O'Neal will discuss what he's been doing since our last interview, his Do Foundation, and his upcoming mother's day concert.